Traveling can be pretty expensive, especially if you are traveling as a family.

Many families avoid traveling because they feel like they don’t have the money or the budget to make it happen.

Well, like I said, traveling can get expensive, but it is definitely possible to go on a family vacation without making it a huge expense!

Today I am going to share with you all the must-know travel tips for planning a family vacation on a tight budget!

Keep reading!

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Finding Cheap Flights

Honestly, finding the cheapest flights is a kind of art 😉 You need to be very patient, look at the right places, at the right times and know what you are doing.

My #1 cheap flight resource is Skyscanner.com which I love so much!

I found the cheapest flights there, including a $96 flight from Tel Aviv to London!

Skyscanner.com is super easy to use, it’s simple, and has many options to find the cheapest flights on the market!

Search options on Skyscanner.com:

Search by a specific date and destination
Search by a specific month and destination
Search by the cheapest month to a specific destination
Search by an unknown month and an unknown destination
Search a one-way ticket
Search flights for multiple destinations

For a full guide on how to find cheap flights on Skyscanner – CLICK HERE!

Finding cheap accommodation

One of the biggest expenses on your trip, except for the flight (usually, unless you get a $96 flight deal ;)) is accommodation.

For this step, I have two resources for you:

Hotelscombined.com – my favorite hotels booking website. Hotelscombined is a hotel website that combines in one place all the prices that are currently on the market for that specific hotel/hostel/apartment you are looking at.

It shows you the cheapest price option for that hotel and refers you to that website to book your stay!

I love HotelsCombined because it shows you where you can find the cheapest price for the hotel you are looking at, and it also gives you a general idea for accommodation prices in the destination you are looking at.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

Airbnb – this is always an option to keep in mind. Usually, in city destinations, I’ll look first on Airbnb prices.

Airbnb is the world’s largest accommodation sharing site. You can book stays at different apartments all over the world! whether it’s only for one night, a week, or even a month if you want to!

On Airbnb.com you can rent someone’s home, apartment, or even book a stay at an interesting place like a boat, treehouse, or a cottage.

In addition to renting a place to stay for your vacation, Airbnb offers unique experiences, mainly interesting tours with locals!

These tours are unlike normal tour packages, and can start from a pub-crawling tour, local cooking classes and much more!

I stayed at an Airbnb apartment on three of my trips to Bucharest, Prague, and Montenegro.

Airbnb is such a fun experience, living like a local, and sometimes it’s also the cheaper and affordable option. BUT, not always.

For example, on my trip to London, I found much cheaper, nice hotels than the Airbnb apartments. So, do your research!

Planning your trip

Here comes THE STEP, which will tell how expensive or not your trip will be.

This is the most important step in planning your trip because you can easily “fall” and make your trip much more expensive than what it should be.

So, how do you travel around on a budget?

Consider traveling off-season than on peak-season – prices drop everywhere if you are traveling off-season.

Not everyone is available during the off-season because usually, it means during work/school year, so it might be a problem, but it is definitely individual and every family has her own preferences.

Purchase your sightseeing tickets in advance for cheap – my favorite way to lower the costs of my trip is by booking my sightseeing tickets through this website.

Get Your Guide is an amazing website that offers discount tickets to multiple attractions, tours, day-trips, entertainment places such as plays, shows, all over the world!

I always purchase tickets through this website, that after some calculations, I got them for around 30% off from Getyourguide.com!

What I also love about the website, is that most of their tickets include a skip-the-line option which is such A HUGE time saver!

So when you use getyourguide.com, you save money and time!

Purchase an attractions pass if needed – Well, this depends if you are visiting a city destination or not. If you are, I highly recommend purchasing one for you and your family.

An attraction pass is a card for which you pay a certain amount of money, and you get access to a variety of attractions in the city of your choice.

The best part is that the price you paid for the ticket is much cheaper than buying an entrance ticket for each attraction separately.

This card is such a money saver during the trip and I highly recommend buying one for your next trip.

When I visited London a while ago, we got the London Pass and it was such a money saver!

After Calculating the prices, we discovered that the price of the card really was much cheaper than purchasing every entry ticket individually!

Also, an attractions pass offers skip-the-line tickets, which means you didn’t only save money, you also saved precious time!

Pro’s Tip: If you decide to buy an attractions pass, purchase it through Getyourguide.com, this way you get an extra discount on the already discounted attractions passes!

Plan your budget before the trip

This is such an important step! When planning your trip – the places you want to visit, considering renting a car or not, budgeting your meals plan, etc.

It is so important to plan your budget, share it with the rest of your family members, so everyone knows what’s up and how to behave during the trip.

Don’t eat out 3 times a day

Food during your trip, especially as a family, can get very expensive.

I highly recommend eating once a day at a restaurant, whether it’s for Lunch or Dinner, and for the rest of your meals – go to the local grocery store and make your own food at your hotel/apartment.

If you can really cook where you are staying, I would also recommend street food, it’s a cheaper option than eating at a full restaurant as a family, and is also a great way to get to know the destination!